*Phil Davidson – Phil is the (human) antagonist of Thing. He’s a decorated Marine junior officer from the Vietnam War (good), the owner of a local barbecue restaurant (good), and the high priest of the local Lovecraftian cult (very bad). He still despises hippies and although not personally racist (he disdains “white trash” who stirred up “racial crap” in the Army during the war), he’s an authoritarian who murdered civil-rights activists for the previous high priest. He finds Borat and Bruno disgusting, not from religious opposition to homosexual behavior (alien horrors don’t mind such things), but due to his old-fashioned ideas of masculinity and propriety. Although there’s much to admire about his devotion to his nation, community (he pays above-market wages to his employees to support the local economy even though this harms his competitiveness), his support for having children after marriage and not before, and his disdain for overly-permissive parenting, his murderous authoritarianism rather dwarfs that.

*Sam Dixon – A private soldier during the 1991 Gulf War, he’s in his 40s and works at the local sheet metal factory. He’s part of the cult headed by Phil, but he’s not ruthless and overbearing like Phil, nor cruel and racist like Deputy Bowie or Jeffrey Reed (we’ll get to them later). For example, his basic empathy (and the abuses he’d seen against Pakistani guest workers in the Persian Gulf) leads him to reject the latter’s prejudices against Indians. However, he’s also a Baptist (despite also being in the cult) and takes pride in his military service, so he’d likely vote for Trump for the same reason many Christians and veterans did despite not approving of Trump’s obnoxious behavior.

*Deputy Charles Bowie – One of the cult’s enforcers, a deputy in the county sheriff’s office who’s in his 50s or 60s. A rural white cop who begins the story by kidnapping a homeless African-American to be sacrificed, he’s not going to be a fan of stronger state or federal oversight of local police forces and he’s going to want the Sheriff’s Office to have all the high-powered goodies it could get its hands on. He’s going to vote for Trump based on police-officer tribalism with a helping of white tribalism and straight-up racism, although his helping isn’t nearly as big as Jeffrey Reed.

*Amber Webb – The female lead of Thing and a high school senior. In terms of social class she’s small-town bourgeoisie like Phil (to whom she’s actually distantly related) rather than working-class like Bowie, Sam, or Reed. She’s also a devout Methodist, so demographics would tilt her toward conservatism. However, unlike other members of her small-town girl posse, she has no objection to interracial relationships and she’s in the community theater, which is probably more liberal than the wider town. Furthermore, she probably empathizes with Hillary Clinton as a woman who could become president and, given how her jerk-jock ex pressured her into sex in the recent past, she probably despises Trump. I imagine in the primaries she would have supported somebody more moderate like Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, or John Kasich, been tempted to vote for Clinton, and probably left the presidential section of the ballot blank like somebody I know who didn’t like Trump but didn’t want taxes raised.

*James Daly – The male lead of Thing and also a high-school senior. James hails from Buckhead, the wealthier white section of Atlanta proper, and he was in the Boy Scouts. However, although he’d call himself a Christian, of those listed he’s the least religious. His close friend from Atlanta is Jewish, he isn’t bothered by two of his Atlanta-transplant friends being in an interracial relationship (Indian boy, white girl), and part of his disdain for Edington is based on the (false) assumption the residents are all racists. However, much of his attitude is driven by class prejudice against Edington’s “rednecks.” He’d be a toss-up, but of all the characters listed he probably be the most likely to vote for Clinton, especially given how he’s a protective big brother to his younger sister and Trump’s attitudes speak for themselves. Buckhead, after all, went for Clinton, and the pro-Trump areas nearby were pretty narrow wins for him.

So although I intended The Thing in the Woods simply as a Georgia horror tale, the context in which it was written (off and on 2007-2014) and set (2010) play a major role in the characterization. And although I was not aware at the time, that context would soon become extremely, extremely important.